But for those cooking for one or two or who prefer a lighter skillet, it also comes in 8-inch and 10-inch sizes, at just over 3 pounds and 4.6 pounds, respectively. The 12-inch pan is large enough to cook six eggs at a time, making it a great option when feeding a family. To counteract that, we suggest rotating the pan while cooking, especially if you’ve got, say, several slices of bacon going at once. The skillet came in second when it came to how quickly it heated oil, but where the Lodge Chef Collection fell a bit behind was in our heat distribution test: Using an infrared thermometer, we found the middle to be quite a bit hotter than the perimeter. The helper handle was also big enough to get a nice grip on, which gives a big assist when you’re trying to lift the filled pan from the oven to the stovetop and back again. The elongated, curved design made it quite comfortable to hold, and gave plenty of room for our bulky oven mitt to fit around. The Lodge also featured our favorite handle. The sear, however, was nice and even with just the crust you want when cooking on a skillet. The steak we seared in 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil did stick slightly, but came up with a gentle tug of our tongs. With just 1 tablespoon of butter melted in the pan before pouring in our batter, the cornbread released beautifully from the pan, leaving only crumbs from our cutting behind.įried eggs fared just as well: Again, cooked in 1 tablespoon of butter, they released and flipped with zero sticking, simply gliding around the pan. Out of the box, the pan was quite smooth, with a slight pebbling, and, after giving it a quick clean, we put it straight to use, baking the cast iron staple of cornbread. Weighing just 6.5 pounds, compared to the classic version’s 8 pounds, the Chef Collection comes preseasoned with 100% natural vegetable oil and has two slightly larger pour spouts that allowed us to deftly remove oil from the pan without a dribble in sight. It has slightly sloped sidewalls that, while shallower than the classic version, make it easy to move your spatula around the pan. Lodge, the oldest and longest-running American cast iron manufacturer, reimagined its classic cast-iron skillet in 2019, releasing the Chef Collection that’s 15% lighter and features a slightly elevated, elongated and curved handle that gives better leverage and control.
The Lodge Chef Collection 12-Inch Skillet rose to the top of our rankings for not only delivering great results across all of our testing criteria, but also for its affordable price. The Chef Collection pan - the company’s lightest skillet - outperformed most of its much higher-priced competitors at nearly every test we threw at it. We found the reasonably priced Lodge Chef Collection 12-Inch Cast-Iron Skillet lives up to the hype. Since 1896, South Pittsburg, Tennessee-based Lodge Cast Iron has been churning out cast-iron cookware, and garnering rave reviews along the way.
Lodge Chef Collection 12-Inch Skillet Lesley Kennedy/CNN